An Old Blue Garden
by toreax
Summary: Forgetting our pasts, my boy, at this point, is like forgetting who we are.


Living a different reality – this is one of those times.

"It's quite ridiculous you dropped the 'u's," Arthur says. He's cradling a teacup, paper-thin, delicate. He sips at steaming Earl Grey.

"How is that ridiculous?" Alfred is already done with his coffee. Arthur hates coffee.

"It's bollocks." He sips again. "And embarrassing, Alfred."

"You think it's that petty?"

"Very." Arthur blinks when Alfred throws his feet onto the coffee table. He doesn't attempt to swat at them - it's useless. He sniffs and continues: "You grew up articulate. Don't you ever look at the words and find them strange?"

"Nah." Alfred shakes his head. "I got over that a long time ago."

Arthur's shoulders are winding up. He can feel a headache beginning to bloom at the nape of his neck. "Honestly, I'm appalled your lack of common sense allowed it."

"I'm wounded, Artie," Alfred says. The words slide through his grin, and his eyebrow raises. "Do you want to know the _real _reason my people got rid of them?"

"Do your worst."

"It's because I was trying to get rid of _you_!" Alfred tips his head back into that obnoxious laughter of his. It crawls through Arthur's shirt, under his skin.

"I'm afraid I'm so out of breath I can't laugh." His fingers move by themselves, straightening his waistcoat that's been pressing flat into the back of his neck for some time now. He hadn't moved once to correct it since Alfred arrived earlier this morning.

"Come on, it's funny!"

"No, Alfred, it's not."

Alfred's laughter dies off slowly. His nose twitches, and Arthur has known him long enough - most likely too long - to know he's refraining from wrinkling his nose.

"Sorry," Alfred says. His smile grows again when Arthur breaks his stillness to set down his cup. Alfred's feet wiggle on the coffee table. The coffee table Arthur had cleaned just yesterday. "Well, it doesn't matter. Another act of rebellion."

"There are much better ways to rebel, Alfred." He briefly thinks back to his boots sunk in the soil, still, as his colony's men flurried by him dressed as Mohawks, pushing and shoving and hollering, reaching over their heads to hurl chests into the harbor. He thinks about Alfred running towards him, mostly.

"And skipping into Deptford isn't?"

"Wanker," he mutters, despite himself.

Alfred grows bored as he watches reruns of _I Love Lucy_ from Arthur's old telly. He occasionally peers Arthur's way when he switches between a novel and his tea. After some time of staring, Arthur huddles back into his curled position, book on his knees. Alfred says, "I think I like it, to be honest."

Arthur doesn't raise his head. "Hm?"

"I like the words that way."

Arthur rolls his eyes. "I hadn't told you to change them."

Alfred is still grinning. "I don't think you can tell me much of anything, Artie."

He's bitter.

...

Arthur does not like being called Artie. It's disrespectful and degrading. Makes him sound like some sort of pet. Sometimes, he knows he must be one.

Matthew used to call him Artie. At first he'd say it in that damned French accent; the letters worked perfectly with his mouth. Arthur gave him a stern talking to for both his sake or Matthew's about lowering his tongue around the Queen. Matthew doesn't say _Artie_, or _amor, _or god-forbid _rabbit_. He says Arthur, and it works. He'd say his name like the letters alone he can touch but doesn't and still wishes he could. Maybe that's why Arthur had always liked Matthew the best.

Arthur does not like to like people.

Matthew says it again this time: "Arthur." It follows with words Arthur doesn't catch because he's hung on this moment. Matthew thinks Arthur doesn't hear him and taps his shoulder.

Arthur says, "Yes, lad?"

Matthew's eyes drift side to side a moment, like he's observing the air between them. "Just…" His voice drifts off. "I hate talking about the bad rather than the good - especially when it comes to you - but I can't seem to wrap my head around why the others can't seem to get over our pasts. I understand. But, I don't see why they don't try."

Arthur knows his smile must come from somewhere. It twitches. "Why, I wonder the same thing."

Sadly, satire has woven into his own skin, especially in the past few decades. Matthew doesn't see it. Matthew sees the past after Alfred had clamored out of the house. He sees the boots stomping and the blood in Arthur's hair, dripping from his nose. He sees Arthur closed in his study.

"Forgetting our pasts, my boy, at this point, is like forgetting who we are. It's all we have. Do not walk around thinking you have something we don't," Arthur says, and is, honestly, satisfied he can put in his two cents. He and Matthew rarely ever talk beyond politics nowadays.

"Maybe I don't have something you do. All of you." Matthew moves his knuckles across the wood and seems surprised when Arthur doesn't respond. Matthew turns his head, waits a moment, and says, "What I mean is maybe why we can never find peace with one another is because of the sole fact we won't talk."

"I think you're overestimating the competence of human emotion." Arthur taps his thumbs together, leaning forward to check on the front doors. Alfred was supposed to meet them thirteen minutes ago, and God knows Francis was on his heels.

"Well, either way, I told you I'd be there for you," Matthew says. It seems Alfred must have blanked on accompanying them to lunch today during the eastern european seminar, so them alone leads Matthew to say, "I'm always here."

It's a shame, really, their days of war are wrapped up like charred memory box and tucked into the furthest corner of an attic, or a moldy closet, or under their box springs. Matthew had left when he had reached the edges of his potential - he's still digging into it now, Arthur hopes - and had grown into himself, especially inching towards '13. He's a fit soldier with experience under his belt, humility stuck in his throat, but, sadly, could hardly do what he was meant to do: fight without shoving back the part of himself that's been prowling for much too long now. And, of course, at the end of the day, he brings back the past.

…

From the time he'd been wrenching out of his brothers' hands, and since he'd heard the name _Teach_, he swears his head hadn't been set straight. Francis called it "a wound in the head, without the wound." Being wounded in the head doesn't ever really go away, he's learned. Neither does pushing away the air people seem to notice when Arthur talks to them. People do not change. But perspective does.

His head had taken another route when he'd started sailing. _Really _sailing, for nights on end, making the memories he'd thought he'd always want to have. Memories of himself becoming a man with no warriness and of his chest swelling with what he used to call _liberty_.

He's never liked women. He hardly thought about them growing up, when growing up solely meant surviving, and he doesn't like them now. But, he did like them when he sailed. Call it an act of spite, or an act of decency. The ache deep in his bones hadn't faded, and he hadn't quite gotten rid of the phantom pains crawling underneath his skin, but that doesn't matter, because when he was a sailor he liked the women. They spread their legs and pleased him enough to let them stay for as long as necessary.

Francis, in the middle of that blasted spout, came to his land, often in secret, huddled his uniform and feathered hat in a ratty bag like he had something to hide. The first time Francis had visited out of "sheer generosity", Arthur punched him in the nose and called him a poof, but Francis punched him back. The punching thing wasn't knew, but it was rearing its head all over again, thus becoming their greeting to each other every year or so, when they'd be on good terms (every once in a while, it seemed). Arthur doesn't mind (somewhat) respectable company, and, at the time, he'd felt rewired and, for once, alive, so naturally Francis commonly got in the middle of plenty of his romantic squabbles.

Francis was always there, all in all. Always. It had always bothered him, until the moments he needed him - moments that will never, ever be spoken out loud, mostly because the ways he'd repay Francis back in the day had been more unconventional - those were the few times they had slept together. Though nowadays when he sees Francis, he sometimes remembers the women. That hole starts again, gnawing at his temples.

When Francis visits today, he says, "Pathetic, _Angleterre_. You could do much better."

Francis touches him like he owns his skin. It makes his body crawl like Alfred's laugh. His fingers brush over him whenever he floats by, or when they reach for the same cup, when Arthur glances over his bookshelf and raises his arms. He gets goosebumps for hours. At some point Arthur lets his guard down and Francis runs his fingers over the brown bruises barely peeking out of his collar. Arthur slaps his hands away.

Arthur should say something snotty back, but he's unsure this time. _This_ time. _Just_ this time. Arthur hands him a freshly made cup of Earl Grey swamped with four tablespoons of sugar. It's strange since Francis drinks some of the most bitter, red wine.

"You shouldn't be doing it, dear," Francis says in French behind Arthur's least favorite teacup. "You're aware you're digging yourself a grave, yes?"

"You know nothing about it," Arthur says in English. There's something building in his chest. He sips his tea and notices how similar Matthew and Francis hold their cups: pinkie raised but curled, cradling it at a slight tilt where the knuckle of his pointer finger bends at a forty-five-degree angle sky-ward.

"He cares nothing for you." Francis sets his cup down on the granite.

Arthur taps his fingers one-by-one on the counter. Francis' eyes are not like the rest of him. "What he wants is no concern of mine."

Francis smiles. "Considering the circumstances, _Arthur_, I think it is a concern of yours." Arthur doesn't answer, and Francis immediately shoots with: "Does what you want matter?"

"That question is rubbish," Arthur says vehemently.

"Well, I don't think so." Francis plucks his spoon out of his teacup and places it on his tongue. His nose wrinkles. "I don't think what you want has ever mattered," he hums. "Not to him, at least. There's something beautiful in that, I believe."

Francis had told him once that, as a matter-of-fact, Arthur was one of the two people he'd ever fallen in love with. Arthur does not see it.

"Beautiful?" Arthur drawls.

"Beautiful, as in romantic," Francis says. His finger waves through the air once before curling around the tip of his black turtle-neck. He speaks in French again: "As in mysterious. Mysteriously beautiful. You have to learn more. Grow!"

Arthur's cup clatters when he sets it down. "You're bloody awful, you know that?"

Francis drums his knuckles on the countertop. His ears have been growing red since they'd started talking. Arthur shuffles around the kitchen, waiting. Francis stops drumming. "I have not been very good to you, have I, love?"

"Very funny, frog." Arthur's lips tighten. "I don't take bait."

…

Arthur, under it all, understands that it's not right. Something's amiss. Maybe it's his head. Maybe, as he's been told, he's too stubborn for his own good.

It doesn't change anything, though, what they're doing. Arthur is getting what he wants and so is Alfred. That's how it is. That's the truth. In this reality, yes, it lacks the line that extends the possibilities of what he could want. But, it must be there. He must have it somewhere.

He normally doesn't feel like his chest is bursting at the seams, but when Alfred whispers something, if not something then nothing, into his shoulder, there's that part of him that feels the wall begin to splinter. Alfred doesn't see it like the dunce he is, but when he gets close enough, the wall has already built itself back up.

One night, just like that stupid _just one time_, Alfred finally asks, "What's...you know, wrong with you, anyway? With this whole thing, I mean."

Alfred must be bored. The question doesn't mean anything, doesn't expect anything. Arthur doesn't answer.

Alfred continues without shame, because Arthur had been sure earlier the pinched look on Alfred's face meant he wanted to blurt out anything next to nonsense. Or a scholarly debate - you never know with him. Alfred speaks his mind accordingly (most of the time) and with Arthur it's no different. It's not supposed to be.

"I mean, you always have something to say," Alfred goes on as Arhur turns his head towards the window again. "But - I don't know - here you go completely quiet, and, like, you get this weird look on your face." Arthur, out of the corner of his eye, sees Alfred's arm wave aimlessly through the air. "I'm not saying it's not bad or anything, just...I don't know."

Alfred has always been too strong in body, but never strong, _especially_ not old, in mind. He knows history, yes, but he doesn't understand it. Doesn't have a lick of sense in translating the textbooks into what happened with them as people. He knows, of course, Alfred - and the majority of the nations - don't want to know. Alfred can't seem to find the universal respect to tone it down.

"You must have a tragic past," Alfred says and chuckles lightly, bringing his knees to his chest.

"I don't have a tragic past," Arthur says.

"You can answer the question." Alfred scratches his lip like he isn't being a brat.

"You didn't even ask a question, Alfred."

"Yes, I did!"

"Go on, then."

Alfred makes a noise of protest, then breathes through his nose. He starts picking at the frayed lining of Arthur's sheets. Alfred had flown over on a joint flight from a meeting in Kenya, and Arthur had been checking up on an author he'd met years ago at his townhouse in London, so Alfred coerced Arthur to let him stay for the night. His flight leaves to America at five a.m., and it was already one-thirty, they hadn't slept, his senile neighbor left the telly on full volume again. The heater broke sometime a few months ago and he hadn't been around to get it fixed, so they were stuck together in the stiff cold with nothing but wool socks and sheets. Alfred had been in a bad mood today, more than Arthur had been, and all of these things probably don't help Alfred's sudden desire to pick Arthur's brain apart.

"I just want to know, Artie. Why you hesitate with me so much."

"I don't hesitate with you, lad," Arthur says, running a hand over his eye before digging a knuckle into his temple.

Alfred huffs into the dim air. "If your going to be like that, you know I'll ask you again tomorrow."

"I don't know why you have an interest at all," Arthur says into the palm of his hand.

"I just do." Alfred sits up. The sheets drop from his collar and Arthur stares at the red marks he'd left on Alfred's throat before realizing how tired he is.

"I'm going to bed, Alfred. You should too, or you're going to whine all tomorrow about being tired like the pest you are."

Alfred falls back onto his shoulder, watching Arthur slowly crawl into bed. Alfred clearly gets more curious as he's halfway underneath the frigid sheets and bows his head to look at his face.

"What?" Arthur mutters

"Nothing. Hey." Alfred plops his head down into his pillow as Arthur lays his. Arthur's stomach grows warm when Alfred shuffles closer, adjusting the sheets over their stomachs before lying down and curling his arms underneath his cheek, staring. Arthur looks at him oddly.

"Hey," Alfred says again. He smiles, and Arthur decides it's too quiet and shoves a pillow between their faces. Alfred laughs loudly, like their having a giggly, school-girl pillow fight, and he's sure the neighbors heard.

"I think," Alfred says quietly all of a sudden, "that you're hardly a man I know. But I know enough, and I'm still here, so I don't see why you're still afraid to indulge me. You know? It's better to let things out. That's how you grow, right? You told me that."

"There's nothing to be afraid of. I haven't an inkling on what you're talking about." Arthur rolls over, closing his eyes. "And you don't always grow, not at an end."

"You're not at an end," Alfred says. The bed rocks for a moment as he sits up onto his elbow again. "Is that what you think? That you're at an end?"

"Alfred, I don't know where you've gotten this fascination with becoming a shrink, but I assure you whatever you're looking for you're looking in the wrong place. Go to sleep."

...

In moments, he says, "fuck me" when he means "fuck you", and in some other moments, he says, "fuck me" when he means "fuck me." There is no in between. There is nothing else. He finds that - and it must be him, how he acts or comes off - many people get them mixed up. They shouldn't be mixed up.

He hadn't taken Francis. Never. He'd had plenty of rising opportunities, but he didn't do it. Not when he was expected to do it, not when the tradition was at its prime. No matter how strong he and his country grew, he didn't. When he had him at swordpoint, at knifepoint, he didn't. He couldn't overtake the man he, in some way, hated the most. That was the first time any of his kings had screamed at him. His king screamed, "Then how the hell am I supposed to trust you with the others?"

When he took down Antonio's armada, the man played right into his arms. Arthur tried to conquer him. He saw it for a moment: squeezing out Antonio's wrung-out pride, squashing the innocence from Lovino's eyes. He heard faint screaming that dies down over time. Arthur couldn't do it.

Arthur left him alone to trudge in the sea of his citizens drowned corpses, and to this day Antonio doesn't say a word about it.

…

Arthur is not close with people.

That's why, centuries later, when Alfred no longer shows up with a nervous smile, Arthur does not trust him.

"I could kill you, you know," Arthur whispers.

Alfred is already smiling. "You wouldn't."

Arthur feels something slip onto his face. His throat is choked up. He finds it bloody hilarious.


End file.
